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Clark Quinn’s Learnings about Learning

‘Sharing’ culture

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I was in a recent conversation about a company facing strong growth and worried about the impact on culture.  Companies with a positive culture, a valuable offering, and a good business model are liable to face growth issues, and maintaining or starting a good culture becomes a critical issue to maintaining the organization’s success.

This company had a positive culture, in that people were diverse, friendly, upbeat, and committed to contributing. These are all positive elements that had led to the early success. Growth, both through hiring and acquisitions, was leading to concerns about the ability for those factors to continue.

One of the things that wasn’t obvious from the initial portrayal of the company was whether folks there were capturing and sharing what they were doing, how they were working, what challenges they were facing, and what results they were seeing. In a small company, this happens naturally through conversation, but face to face communication isn’t scalable.

One obvious possibility is to implement or more systematically leverage an enterprise social network (ESN; essentially    using social media in the org).  Working out loud, as it’s known, has many benefits.  As people share their work, others can comment and improve it.  People can ask for help and get collaboration on those new problems and innovation needs that are increasingly arising.  Mistakes can be made and the lessons learned can be shared so no others have to make the same mistakes.

One of the offshoot benefits of such sharing is that it takes the positive cultural attributes already being shown and makes them visible (if implicitly) as well.  It’s not guaranteed, but with an awareness of the behaviors and manifestations of culture through the network, a systematic process could lead to that positive culture scaling  and yield those additional benefits that accompany working out loud.

It takes all the elements of a learning culture and organizational change, of course. You need to continue to welcome diversity, be open to new ideas, and have it safe to contribute.  You also need to develop a vision, message it, have the leadership model it, facilitate it, anticipate problems and be prepared to address them, and ultimately reward the desired outcomes.  But this is doable.

The benefits of a positive culture are becoming known, and the value of social networks are also emerging. Linking them together is not only necessary, but the benefits are more than the sum of the parts.

#itashare

Getting contextual

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For the current ADL webinar series on mobile, I gave a presentation on contextualizing mobile in the larger picture of L&D (a natural extension of my most recent books).  And a question came up about whether I thought wearables constituted mobile.  Naturally my answer was yes, but I realized there’s a larger issue, one that gets meta as well as mobile.

So, I’ve argued that we should be looking at models for guiding our behavior.  That we should be creating them by abstracting from successful practices, we should be conceptualizing them, or adopting them from other areas.  A good model, with rich conceptual relationships, provides a basis for explaining what has happened, and predicting what will happen, giving us a basis for making decisions.  Which means they need to be as context-independent as possible.

WorkOppsSo, for instance, when I developed the mobile models I use, e.g. the 4C‘s and the applications of learning (see figure), I deliberately tried to create an understanding that would transcend the rapid changes that are characterizing mobile, and make them appropriately recontextualizable.

In the case of mobile, one of the unique opportunities is contextualization.  That means using information about where you are, when you are, which way you’re looking, temperature or barometric pressure, or even your own state: blood pressure, blood sugar, galvanic skin response, or whatever else skin sensors can detect.

To put that into context (see what I did there): with desktop learning, augmenting formal could be emails that provide new examples or practice that spread out over time. With a smartphone  you can do the same, but you could also have a localized information so that because of where you were you might get information related to a learning goal. With a wearable, you might get some information because of what you’re looking at (e.g. a translation or a connection to something else you know), or due to your state (too anxious, stop and wait ’til you calm down).

Similarly for performance support: with a smartphone you could take what comes through the camera and add it onto what shows on the screen; with glasses you could lay it on the visual field.  With a watch or a ring, you might have an audio narration.  And we’ve already seen how the accelerometers in fit bracelets can track your activity and put it in context for you.

Social can not only connect you to who you need to know, regardless of device or channel, but also signal you that someone’s near, detecting their face or voice, and clue you in that you’ve met this person before.  Or find someone that you should meet because you’re nearby.

All of the above are using contextual information to augment the other tasks you’re doing.  The point is that you map the technology to the need, and infer the possibilities.  Models are a better basis for elearning, too so that you teach transferable understandings (made concrete in practice) rather than specifics that can get outdated.  This is one of the elements we placed in the Serious eLearning Manifesto, of course.  They’re also useful for coaching & mentoring as well, as for problem-solving, innovating, and more.

Models are powerful tools for thinking, and good ones will support the broadest possible uses.  And that’s why I collect them, think in terms of them, create them, and most importantly, use them in my work.   I encourage you to ensure that you’re using models appropriately to guide you to new opportunities, solutions, and success.

Peeling the onion

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I’ve been talking a bit recently about deepening formal design, specifically to achieve learning that’s flexible, persistent, and develops the learner’s abilities to become self-sustaining in work and life.  That is, not just for a course, but for a curriculum.  And it’s more than just what we talked about in the Serious eLearning Manifesto, though of course it starts there.    So, to begin with, it needs to start with meaningful objectives, provide related practice, and be trialed and developed, but there’s more, there are layers of development that wrap around the core.

One element I want to suggest is important is also in the Manifesto, but I want to push a bit deeper here.  I worked to put in that the elements behind, say, a procedure or a task, that you apply to problems, are models or concepts.  That is, a connected body of conceptual relationships that tie together your beliefs about why it should be done this way.  For example, if you’ve a procedure or process you want people to follow, there is (or should be) a  rationale  behind it.

And  you should help learners discover and see the relationships between the model and the steps, through examples and the feedback they get on practice.  If they can internalize the understanding behind steps, they are better prepared for the inevitable changes to the tools they use, the materials they work on, or the process changes what will come from innovation.  Training them on X, when X will ultimately shift to Y, isn’t as helpful unless you help them understand the principles that led to performance on X and will transfer to Y.

Another element is that the output of the activities should create scrutable deliverables  and  also annotate the thoughts behind the result.  These provide evidence of the thinking both implicit and explicit, a basis for mentors/instructors to understand what’s good, and what still may need to be addressed, tin the learner’s thinking.  There’s also the creation of a portfolio of work which belongs to the learner and can represent what they are capable of.

Of course, the choices of activities for the learner initially, and the design of them to make them engaging, by being meaningful to the learner in important ways, is another layer of sophistication in the design.  It can’t just be that you give the traditional boring problems, but instead the challenges need to be contextualized. More than that (which is already in the Manifesto), you want to use exaggeration and story to really make the challenges compelling.  Learning  should   be hard fun.

Another layer is that of 21st Century skills (for examples, the SCANS competencies).  These can’t be taught separately, they really need to manifest across whatever domain learnings you are doing. So you need learners to not just learn concepts, but apply those concepts to specific problems. And, in the requirements of the problem, you build in opportunities to problem-solve, communicate, collaborate, e.g. all the foundational and workplace skills. They need to reappear again and again and be assessed (and developed) separately.

Ultimately, you want the learner to be taking on responsibility themselves.  Later assignments should include the learner being given parameters and choosing appropriate deliverables and formats for communication.  And this requires and additional layer, a layer of annotation on the learning design. The learners need to be seeing  why the learning was so designed, so that they can internalize the principles of good design and so become self-improving learners. You, for example, in reading this far, have chosen to do this as part of your own learning, and hopefully it’s a worthwhile investment.  That’s the point; you want learners to continue to seek out challenges, and resources to succeed, as part of their ongoing self-development, and that comes by having seen learning design and been handed the keys at some point on the journey, with support that’s gradually faded.

The nuances of this are not trivial, but I want to suggest that they  are doable.  It’s a subtle interweaving, to be sure, but once you’ve got your mind around it (with scaffolded practice :), my claim is that it can be done, reliably and repeatedly.   And it should.  To do less is to miss some of the necessary elements for successful support of  an individual to become the capable and continually self-improving learner that we need.

I touched on most of this when I was talking about Activity-Based Learning, but it’s worthwhile to revisit it (at least for me :).

Facilitating Innovation

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One of the things that emerged at the recent A(S)TD conference was that a particular gap might exist. While there are resources about learning design, performance support design, social networking, and more, there’s less guidance about facilitating innovation.  Which led me to think a wee bit about what might be involved.  Here’s a first take.

So, first, what are the elements of innovation?  Well, whether you  listen to Stephen Berlin Johnson on the story of innovation, or Keith Sawyer on ways to foster innovation, you’ll see that innovation isn’t individual.  In previous work, I looked at models of innovation, and found that either you mutated an existing design, or meld two designs together.  Regardless, it comes from working and playing well together.

The research suggests that you  need to make sure you are addressing the right problem, diverge on possible solutions via diverse teams under good process, create interim representations, test, refine, repeat.  The point being that the right folks need to work together over time.

The barriers are several.  For one, you need to get the cultural elements right: welcoming diversity, openness to new ideas, safe to contribute, and time for reflection.  Without being able to get the complementary inputs, and getting everyone to contribute, the likelihood of the best outcome is diminished.

You also shouldn’t take for granted that everyone knows how to work and play well together.  Someone may not be able to ask for help in effective ways, or perhaps more likely, others may offer input in ways that minimize the likelihood that they’ll be considered.  People may not use the right tools for the job, either not being aware of the full range (I see this all the time), or just have different ways of working. And folks may not know how to conduct brainstorming and problem-solving processes effectively  (I see this as well).

So, the facilitation role has many opportunities to increase the quality of the outcome.  Helping establish culture, first of all, is really important.  A second role would be to understand and promote the match of tools to need. This requires, by the way, staying on top of the available tools.  Being concrete about learning and problem-solving processes, and  educating them and looking for situations that need facilitation, is another role  Both starting up front and educating folks before these skills are needed are good, and then monitoring for opportunities to tune those skills are valuable.  Finally, developing process facilitation skills,  serving in that role or developing the skills, or both, are critical.

Innovation isn’t an event, it’s a process, and it’s something that I want P&D (Learning & Development 2.0 :) to be supporting. The organization needs it, and who better?

#itashare

Beyond Talent Development

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On Tuesday, with a big presentation, the American Society for Training & Development announced a rebranding. The new name is the Association for Talent Development, going from ASTD to ATD. And while this is a necessary move, I think it wasn’t the best change they could’ve made.

ASTD needed the change, for two reasons. For one, ASTD has membership in, and runs events, around the world. There may be other orgs (e.g. CSTD for Canada), but the 800 lb gorilla is ASTD. Second, training, while still a large proportion of what ASTD does (rightly or wrongly), is increasingly being joined by other approaches such as coaching and mentoring.

The first reason resonates, but I have a problem with the second. To put it another way, I believe that the change to Association makes sense, but Talent Development doesn’t.  As I stated in Revolutionize Learning & Development, I believe that the necessary direction for organizations is to couple optimal performance with continual innovation. What’s required from Learning & Development, then, is to support all manners of performance and develop continual innovation.

What’s involved is not only to support training when it needs to be ‘in the head’, but using performance support when we can. And we need to develop and facilitate organizational innovation. The latter means not only developing individual (and group) ability to interact constructively, but to facilitate useful interactions of all sorts.

And here’s the rub. I see Talent Development as developing people through training, mentoring, and coaching, but I see the potential role for the folks in what now is termed L&D to be not only the development of people’s ability, but their ability to perform, even if it isn’t developing the person. That is, using performance support when it makes sense should be part of the unit’s responsibility, even when it doesn’t develop the person. Similarly, I see facilitating constructive interaction (curating resources, removing barriers to interaction and supporting tool use, etc), whether it develops people or not, as a vital role.

That’s the reason I chose to suggest, in the book, that the unit should be renamed Performance & Development; supporting both optimal execution and continual innovation in all relevant ways. The opportunity is to be the strategic organizational resource to ensure that all the intellectual resources of the organization are contributing.

And that is the reason I have a problem with Talent Development. To me, Talent Development is focused only on developing people instead of facilitating overall organization performance. And I think that’s falling short of the opportunity, and the need. Don’t get me wrong, I laud that ASTD made a change, and I think Talent Development is a good thing. Yet I think that our role can and should be more.  I  wish they’d thought a little broader, and covered all of the potential contributions.  So, maybe, Association of Performance & Development or APD. Regardless, it’s a dynamic organization that offers a lot. I just wonder who’s going to fill the gaps.

Learning Quotient?

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I had the good fortune to be invited to the Future of Work event that was held here in Silicon Valley two  weeks ago, and there were four breakouts, one of which was on learning and knowledge management.  You can guess which one I was on (though tempted by the leadership and culture one; there was overlap).

Within that breakout the activity was to pick four topics and further break out.  The issue was meeting workplace needs given the changing nature of work, and I suggested that perhaps the biggest need was to focus on skills that held true across domain, so called meta-cognitive skills, and learning to learn (a total surprise, right?).  That was one that people were interested in, so that’s what we discussed.

We broke down learning into some component elements.  We talked about how your beliefs about learning (your epistemological stance) mattered, as well as your intention to learn, and how effective you were at learning alone and with others.  It also matters how well you use tools and external representations, as well as your persistence.

What emerged was that learning skills shouldn’t be taken for granted.  And consequently, one of the attendees suggested that perhaps along with IQ and EQ, we should be looking at people’s LQ or learning quotient.  I just saw an advertisement that said EQ (they called it EI Emotional Intelligence, probably to avoid trademark infringement) was better than IQ because you can improve your EQ scores. However, the evidence suggests you can improve your LQ scores too.

A decade ago now, Jay Cross and I were pushing the meta-learning lab, and I still think Jay was right claiming that meta-learning might be your best investment.  So, are you aware of how you learn? Have you improved how you learn?  Can you help others learn more effectively?  I believe the answer is yes, and we not only can, but  should.

No, we’re not “doing all right”

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A number of the Change Agents Worldwide  resonated with an image of the 50 reasons not to change at work that was overlaid on an image of Doug Engelbart. The point, of course, is that all these reasons not to change provide a significant barrier to success. We decided that we‘d line up and  start a blog carnival with each of us addressing one. I decided to address number 45:

45. We‘re doing all right as it is.

First, do you have evidence for that, or are you in denial? It‘s easy to not want to change because it‘ll be hard, so it‘s easier to say that things are OK. It is particularly easy if you aren‘t really checking! L&D, for instance, has been notoriously bad about seeing whether their interventions are actually achieving any impact (around 3% reporting that they actually go to level 4 on Kirkpatrick‘s scale).

If you are checking, what are your benchmarks? Are you measuring just execution, or are you including innovation? Because, as I‘ve said before, optimal execution is only going to let you survive, to thrive you‘ll need continual innovation. If you‘re doing what your strategy says, are you looking out for disruptive forces, and creating your own? You should be checking to see if you‘re striking that balance of being able agile enough as well as productive enough.

Finally, is “all right” really good enough? Shouldn‘t we be shooting for the best, not just good enough? Do you think your competitors are sitting complacent? We really should be looking for every edge. That doesn‘t come from believing we‘re doing all right. We should be looking for continual improvement.

Yes, it‘s harder to not believe we‘re doing all right as it is, but your curiosity should be driving you forward regardless. Your organization, if it isn‘t continually learning, is declining. Are you really doing all right? If you‘re definition of ‘all right‘ is that you are continually curious and moving forward with experimentation, then I reckon so.

Revolution hits the road

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Finally!    Revolutionize Learning & Development (Performance and Innovation Strategy for the Information Age) is now shipping,  (and has been available on Kindle for a couple of weeks), so at last you should be able to get your mitts on it if you’re so inclined.  And, if you’re at all involved in trying to make your organization successful, I will immodestly suggest you might want to be so inclined.

Just as background, it documents my claim that organizational L&D isn’t doing what it could and should be doing, and what it  is doing, it is doing badly. Then it lays out  elements that should be considered, what it would look like if it were going well, and    how you  might get there.  While the exact strategy for any one organization will be dependent on where they are and the nature of the business, there are some frameworks to help you apply those to your business.  The goal is to move to Performance & Development, coupling optimal execution with continual innovation.

If you’re curious but not yet ready to dig in, let me mention a couple of things:

  • there’s a free sample available
  • I was interviewed by GameOn Learning’s Bryan Austin about the topic (shorter and more focused)
  • I was also interviewed by Rick Zanotti of Relate (longer and more wide-ranging)

And, if you’re going to be at ASTD’s International Conference  in DC next week, I will be there and:

  • presenting about the issues  on Monday the 5th of May  at 4:30 PM in room 146B (session M313)
  • signing copies right after (5:30 PM) in the ASTD book store
  • holding an author chat on Wednesday May 7th at 9:45 AM also at the ASTD Bookstore

So, check it out, and see if it makes sense to you.  Or you can just  go ahead and get it.  I hope to see you in DC, and welcome your feedback!